The Hofstadter Misconstruction
by Concupiscence66
Summary: Leonard's sister and neice come for an unwanted and unexpected visit.  Everyone is going to learn something even if it kills them.
1. Chapter 1

Penny doesn't follow politics but she knows she doesn't like the recent changes to the credit card offers she's been receiving. Predatory credit cards had kept her in shoes for years now. She is sadly looking through her sad offers when Leonard and Sheldon come through the door. Leonard is apparently scheduling another colonoscopy. Penny follows them up the stairs so she can listen in. Misery loves company.

"There isn't very much room... It'll be really tight... I can't relax just because you say 'relax'! I can't make 2pm. I have a job... Fine, I'll work something out. I love you, too."

Leonard put his phone away with a heavy sigh.

Sheldon smiled, "I am looking forward to meeting your sister! When will she arrive?"

Penny perked up. Another Hofstadter! Meeting members of her neighbors' respective families was always an intriguing and surprising...

Fuck it, it was hilarious. Now that she and Leonard were no longer dating, she could just sit back and enjoy the show.

"Her plane arrives tomorrow at 2pm..."

"I'll pick her up at the airport!" Penny knew she sounded too eager.

Leonard gave her a wounded look, "My family isn't a side show act for your entertainment."

"Of course not, Leonard! Your sister is a brilliant woman who is doing very important work with... with..."

"Diabetes," supplied Sheldon.

"Diabetes," Penny continued, "and I am looking forward to meeting such an extraordinary woman." And if I bring some popcorn and cotton candy with me to help enjoy the show, sue me.

Sheldon gave Penny and condescending/approving smile, "Penny is right to be eager to meet someone so remarkable and, being your sister, no doubt Cassandra has a high tolerance for nonsensical and banal conversation."

"Cassandra can be a little... abrasive."

"Like your mom?" Penny asked, a little concerned.

"Oh, no! Nothing like my mother," that was a relief, "My mom is a trained psychiatrist. Cassandra doesn't have her people skills."


	2. Chapter 2

There was no question which one was Cassandra Hofstadter-Bergdorf. She had Beverly's striking beauty and ice blue eyes and Leonard's unruly curls. She also had the cutest toddler Penny had ever seen in her arms. Although she was alone in her car, Penny "awwwed" aloud. She loved little kids. As long as they were other people's little kids and she had no responsibility for their well-being.

"Hi! You must be Cassandra! I'm Penny, Leonard's friend."

Cassandra offered a friendly smile that did not meet her eyes.

"Of course you are. Have you ever installed a car seat?"

"Um... no."

"Of course you haven't."

Cassandra placed the toddler on the ground, keeping a firm hold on her leash (it was attached to a backpack but it was still a leash) and opened the back door of Penny's car. She looked for a moment like she might vomit but quickly composed herself. Penny had cleaned the car before picking her up and couldn't imagine what was upsetting the woman... Oh, an empty can of diet soda had rolled out from under the seat. Wow.

Cassandra took so long adjusting the car seat that a cop tried to hurry them along.

"OH MY GOD! Write me a ticket! WRITE me a TICKET right now for trying to ascertain the safety of my child by properly installing a car seat. I said WRITE ME A TICKET! I would love to go to court and have you explain why my child's safety is less important than your meaningless traffic ordinance... Is it because we're two women? Does it offend you to see two women with a child? Give me your badge number!"

Cassandra didn't get a ticket but she did get a badge number and quite a few stares. When the cop drove away, she returned to the task at hand as though nothing had happened.

Penny looked at the leashed toddler who seemed to be having an argument with herself. Penny wondered if she was re-enacting the scene between her mother and the police officer. There was something familiar about the way she tossed her mop of curls and she babbled angrily.

"And what's your name?" Penny asked, kneeling down to speak to the child.

"She doesn't yet have the verbal capacity to answer that question for herself but if she did, she would respond 'Lenore'," answered a muffled voice from Penny's back seat.

"Awww, like Leonard?"

"Like the poem by Edgar Allen Poe."

Penny didn't dare ask the name of the poem.

"Poe! Poe! Po-o-o-o-oe!" chimed Lenore.

"Oh, Lenore, you can't even read yet and you already know more about literature than I ever will, dontcha?"

It was cold comfort that Lenore didn't actually know what she was saying when she looked Penny in the eyes and responded, "Yeah."


	3. Chapter 3

When Cassandra strapped Lenore into her seat, she kissed the little girl's forehead and said, "Mommy loves you."

It must have been a ritual because Lenore then kissed her mother's head and said, "Mammammmaa oooooh".

"I think I am literally going to die from how cute your baby is!"

"Please don't."

"Um. Okay."

"You're check engine light is on."

"Yeah, it's been on since I bought the car."

"I can fix it for you if you like."

"You can? That would be great."

Cassandra pulled a roll of black tape out of her purse and covered the check engine light, "These 'warning' lights serve no function beyond scaring hysterics."

"Thanks! That's much better. It really bothered your mom..."

"You've met my mother?"

"Twice. She only drove in my car once but she was really disturbed..."

"My mother is a histrionic."

Penny could have sworn she knew what histrionic meant but she was clearly wrong.

"What does histrionic mean again...?"

"Overly dramatic, theatrical."

Penny wondered if they were talking about the same woman.

"You should have seen her when I was giving birth to Lenore. I thought as a trained psychiatrist she could be a calming influence."

"Not so much?"

"Every time I screamed in pain she would ask 'Are you all right? Do you need anything?' It was impossible to focus my breathing. I had to kick her out of the birthing room."

"Wow. That must have been..." she had nothing, "So you went with natural child birth?"

"Yes."

"Did it hurt?"

"You've seen a baby's head?"

"Um, yes..."

"And you know where the baby comes out?"

"Point taken, dumb question. Are you older or younger than Leonard?"

"Older by three years."

"I tried to ask Beverly what Leonard was like when he was little..."

"And all she wanted to talk about was his penis? That's my mother. Wonder what Freud would say about that."

Penny was starting to like Cassandra.

"How do you know Leonard?"

"I live across the hall from him," clearly Leonard had never mentioned her, "Oh, and we dated for eight months."

Cassandra looked Penny up and down in her Cheesecake Factory uniform and again her smile did not meet her eyes.

"Of course you did."

Penny was starting to dislike Cassandra.


	4. Chapter 4

"Sooo... What was Leonard like when he was little?"

"He's still little."

Penny sighed, she should have known better.

"What was Leonard like when he was, let's go with 10. Had he let go of his penis yet?"

"He was in the latency stage at that point so, yes."

"What was he like other than that?"

"Insufferable," Cassandra sighed as though it were a painful memory, "That was the age when he built the 'hugging machine'. On several occasions I tried to turn it into a 'little brother throttling machine'."

"Was he really that bad? My brothers were terrible. They were always going through my things, breaking my stuff, telling my friends EVERYTHING!"

"Leonard had just realized around that time that he was unusually intelligent and that our family was, for lack of a better word, unusual. He was a monster until puberty kicked in and his self-esteem came crashing down."

"Well, he built a hugging machine... He might have been kind of..." fucked up? damaged? emotionally neglected? "sad at that age."

Cassandra groaned, "He informed our mother that her complete lack of 'maternal instinct' or 'warmth' was debilitating to his growth intellectually and physically. You can imagine how hurt she was by his thesis."

"Thesis?"

"Twelve pages on her maternal inadequacies! I know he was only ten, but the research was haphazard and he cited come dubious sources."

Penny thought maybe she should try her hand at screen writing again. This was some golden material, she just needed to decide if it would be a comedy or drama.

"So he really hurt your mother's feelings?" Penny tried to imagine Beverly Hofstadter being sad and could not. Then she tried to imagine her being happy with no more success.

"She never said as much or showed it in her behavior or facial expressions but I noticed a certain listlessness in her work that year. And how was Leonard reprimanded for his callous behavior? They bought him a dog, Mitzy. The only pets I ever had were mother's lab rats and I was only allowed to pet them if it was prudent to the study."

"I can't believe he actually wrote a 12 page paper about your mother..."

"He actually quoted some research, including his own, regarding growth and nurturing and said he would be lucky to hit 5'6 in his current environment. Then the little bastard stalled out at 5'5!"

"Um... you know he didn't stop growing just to upset your mother... right?"

Cassandra raised her eyebrows at Penny. Penny wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a yes or a no.


	5. Chapter 5

When they arrive at 2311 Los Robles, Cassandra raised an eyebrow at the broken elevator.

"They still haven't fixed that? It's been years since Leonard nearly sold out his country for a piece of a-s-s."

Lenore was climbing up the stairs on her hands and knees. It was an arduous process and Penny offered to carry the toddler. Cassandra looked at her as though she'd suggested drowning a bag of baby kittens and explained that it was important for Lenore to accomplish things on her own so she would develop feelings of autonomy and self-efficacy. Penny thought her words were sound and decided to give herself a pat on the back every time she climbed a flight of steps. An accomplishment was an accomplishment, after all, and she could use an ego boost.

"How was Leonard as a teen? Once his self-esteem had been crushed?"

"Much the same as he is now," Cassandra replied but then looked thoughtful, "but much more driven. He was in a lot of clubs, did a lot of volunteer work, took classes at Princeton. He was very concerned about being accepted into a good school based on his own merit. Now he seems to mainly spend his time playing video games and reading comic books."

"He didn't read comic books in high school?"

"No. All that 'nerd' stuff started in college. Movies, video games, comics... there was no place for such frivolity in our household. Once he went away to school he submitted to peer pressure."

Penny thought that one over. Reading comic books and watching Star Trek had been Leonard's way of being "cool". Wow.

"So he was super-serious in high school?"

"Neurotic, anxiety ridden... oh, and a total hound!"

"A what?"

"A hound," Cassandra raised her eyebrows, "Do I need to spell that out as well?"

"No, I guess not. I'm just surprised. He's not really that great with women..."

"The nerd crap killed his game. Before that he spent all his time reading to old people and volunteering at the animal shelter. He worked that 'sensitive guy' angle into the ground!" Cassandra laughed fondly at the memory. Penny was trying to imagine Leonard as the Don Juan of the chess club. She couldn't quite picture it.

By Penny's estimation is was about three hours before they reached the fourth floor. It might have been closer to ten minutes. Time slows down when you're following a toddler.

When Leonard answered the door, Penny was surprised to see Cassandra give him an effusive hug. Leonard and his mother had always seemed uncomfortable around each other and, in general, Leonard seemed uncomfortable with... pretty much everyone.

Penny was less surprised when Cassandra tousled his hair and said, "Still keeping Supercuts in business, I see."

"Actually, I go to Cutz 2000."

"First of all, it is 2011 and secondly, if this haircut is typical of their work it could be called Cutz 1955."

Leonard dropped into a squat in front of his niece and smiled, "You're one lucky little girl, Lenore."


	6. Chapter 6

1. Penny furtively looked at her watched, she had to be at the Cheesecake Factory in less than an hour but she really wanted to keep digging into Leonard's personal business. She'd known him for so long but never _really_ got to know him. While his life appeared to be an open book, it was written in Klingon.

Sheldon prepared a cup of tea for Cassandra while Lenore stared at him in awe.

"My friends, Howard and Rajesh are coming over a little later..."

Cassandra gave a broad smile, "I'm looking forward to meeting your friends! It's tremendous that your friend's designs have gone into space."

"He built a toilet," Sheldon yelled from the kitchen, "and he built it badly."

Cassandra smirked at Sheldon's back before continuing, "I still have the People Magazine featuring Rajesh."

Sheldon looked ready to say something but Lenore had begun batting at his knee caps yelling, "Ticka, ticka."

"Why is this child hitting me? How do I make her stop?"

"She's tickling you, Sheldon," Cassandra explained, "Laugh."

"Why would I laugh? She's not tickling me, she's hitting me."

"It's a cute behavior and I don't want to extinguish it, so,_ laugh_."

Cassandra spoke with a degree of authority that even Sheldon could not ignore. When he gave his breathy version of a laugh, Cassandra turned to Leonard and mouthed, "What was that?"

Leonard smiled, "It's his laugh, leave him alone."

"That's not a laugh," Cassandra whispered, "That's an asthma attack!"

"It's a cute behavior, and I don't want to extinguish it."

2.

Leonard all but shooed Penny out the door as her shift approached but Cassandra was just so delightfully odd, she didn't want to miss the show.

"I really am looking forward to meeting Rajesh..."

"Oh, I wouldn't be too excited about meeting Raj..." Leonard looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Penny poked her head back in the door and shared Cassandra's interested look.

"Raj has already declared his intention to... I dated Raj's sister for a while and I'm pretty sure he was kidding about bringing shame to the Hofstadter name but..."

"I'll try to resist his charms," Cassandra laughed, "Did you tell him I was married?"

"Yes," Leonard said, "I also said you were thirty-eight."

Cassandra frowned, "Why did you pad my age... Did you say I was thirty-eight so he wouldn't think of me as a potential sex partner?"

Leonard shrugged.

"So, if I were five years older, I would no longer be sexually attractive to men?"

"Is that what you're saying?" Penny added with a smile that might have read as evil.

Leonard threw his hands in the air like he was surrendering and Cassandra moved on.

"Which girl was his sister?"

"Priya," Leonard, Penny and Sheldon answered in unison. Penny felt a little better than Cassandra didn't know Priya's name when she had been Leonard's most recent girlfriend. Maybe Cassandra had a bad memory for names.

"Oh, that bitch."

"She wasn't a bitch," Leonard snapped with a quick glare for Penny and Sheldon who remained silent on the subject, "She was looking for something different from what I was looking for..."

"Like the girl who ditched you at a bowling alley and ended up sleeping with one of your friends?"

Penny really needed to get to work and did so, post haste.


End file.
